Happy Easter!

...Yay, it's Saturday night! Mr. IQ has been working SO hard, and he needed a night off. So I laced his dinner with sedatives and when he finally passed out on the stairway I tenderly covered him with a blanket and made a mad dash for the computer! And here I am! Finally! Unlimited computer access without someone standing over my shoulder and making me feel guilty! I blame him entirely for me writing Karma Sutra instead of Kama Sutra in the last post! Damn it, he doesn't give me enough time to edit myself properly!!...

I am not, it must be confessed, much of a gourmand. I have been known to open cans of tomatoes and eat them like soup. Cold soup. High Intensity, on the other hand, has developed into the Grumpy Gourmet. If I give her a bowl of canned diced tomatoes (nicely warmed) and try to pass it off as soup, she'll say, "Mom, this is canned tomatoes," and refuse to eat any of it.

"But it's tomatoes aux fines herbes," I told her the first time I did this, pointing to the French side of the label. "That means it's very fancy."

She fell for it once, and cautiously tried some. But never again.

A few years back, someone at my school got the bright idea to put together a cookbook comprised of our staff's favourite recipes. Of course, I cook a lot more now, especially with Julia High Intensity Child around, but back then I never cooked. It would have been a little embarrassing handing in a recipe like:

Open can of tomatoes
Heat, if feeling ambitious
Um, maybe take the contents out of the metal can first? It's going into the microwave...
Wow, I thought I was lazy.
Eat.

So I ignored the request for a recipe. But even though I did not contribute to the book, I still received a copy of the thing. And for reasons that are difficult to explain, became weirdly, inexplicably fascinated with this one potato recipe I found in it. I have never made the dish, but its ingredients haunt me, and I've described it to practically every person I know. I always have a good time with it:

Me: Wanna hear about this recipe?
You: Sure!
Me: A potato recipe!
You: Right on!
Me: Okay, here are the ingredients. Ready?
You: Yah!
Me: A package of hash browns.
You: Right on! Hash browns!
Me: A can of cream of mushroom soup.
You: I LIKE where this is going!!
Me: Two cups sour cream.
You: Hallelujah!
Me: One cup shredded cheese.
You: KILLER!
Me: A cup of butter!!
You: Suicide! Coronary city, batman!!
Me: And rashers and rashers of bacon!!
You: AUGHGHGH!!!
Me: Mix, bake and serve!!
You: Death in a pan! Love it!
Me: It's called "Bertha's Potatoes!"
You: Bertha, them's some lard-ass potatoes you got there, man!
Us Together: Ha! Ha! Ha!

Over the years this "Bertha's Potatoes" recipe has assumed mythical proportions in my brain, symbolizing, well, I guess symbolizing everything that I think is wrong with North American culture right now. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like my cheese. I like my sour cream. And of course I like butter, hash browns and bacon. But all mixed together and then served as a side dish? Too much, man. Too much.

This weekend my in-laws are in town for Easter. They phoned us on Thursday and said they were rolling into town for the weekend with a ham. They are big meat eaters, and my step-mother-in-law prides herself on never, ever eating vegetables, so when they're here I tend to cook things I don't normally eat. Armed with the culinary motto of my aunt, who is a great cook ("twice the sugar, even more fat!") we tackle huge, ambitious, butter-laden recipes which invariably lead to failure. During our huddled conferences near the end of the cooking process, a panicked Mr. IQ will whisper, "It tastes terrible! Augh! Augh! What do we do? What do we do?" and I will whimper, " I don't know!! Add more sugar! Add more fat!" And both of us will start running around the kitchen like crazy Swedish chefs melting butter frantically and hunting for the sugar bowl.

Wow, have we ever served some wretchedly awful meals.

Having not quite recovered from making Christmas dinner yet, the news that we were to cook up the big Easter spread didn't exactly fill me with feelings of euphoric glee, but they're family and we love them, so of course we agreed to their plan. Less than enthusiastically, I hit the Internet to find an Easter menu, and found one. Can we say Bertha's potatoes times one million? In addition to the Holiday Ham, there are the "Potatoes Grand Mere", "Party Potatoes" and "Parker House Rolls", as well as two desserts, a sassy Lemon Truffle Pie and its sweet ingenue cousin, Little Miss Strawberry Pie. The Potatoes Grand Mere call for two cups of whipping cream, one tablespoon butter and 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese. The "Party Potatoes" contain 1/2 cup butter, one package of cream cheese, 1/2 cup sour cream and then three additional tablespoons of butter. And to make the Parker House Rolls you'll need one cup of whole milk (and yes, they specify "whole" milk), 1/2 cup butter, and then even "more melted butter." I didn't even look at the recipes for the pies. My heart was already seizing up from the potato recipes, and just seeing the words "more melted butter" had made my stomach start swearing and I'd been forced to undo the top button of my pants.

Bertha's Potatoes, you've been replaced.

I spent most of Friday in a bit of a depressed stupor, dreading Sunday for about four thousand different reasons, but then, miraculously, I was saved. Dinner is going to be at Mr. IQ's step-brother's place, and all we have to do is bring a salad and dessert! Yay!

Have a great Easter!